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Monday, October 8, 2012

2012 AL Connie Mack Award

As a member of the Baseball Blogger's Alliance, I have the privilege of voting for all the end-of-season awards. The first one I am announcing this year is the Connie Mack for the Manager of the Year.

There were a lot of good candidates this year:
- Buck Showalter took a team that should have been barely .500 based on their runs scored differential, and won 93 games, and had a shot at the AL East division right up to the last day of the season.

- Bob Melvin took an Oakland team that traded away some of their best players in the offseason, and shocked the Rangers to win the AL West division.

-Robin Ventura took over the White Sox from Ozzie Guillen who failed to get them to .500, and had them atop the AL Central until the last week of the season

My pick goes to Bob Melvin. His team had two big comebacks this season. They were under .500 and 13 games back in July, and went 19-5 to get back into the wildcard conversation, and were still 5 games behind Texas in late September and won their last 6 games - all must wins - to end up ahead of the Rangers. And he was working with a lineup that was constrained by the league's lowest payroll at $53 Million payroll vs Baltimore's who was near he middle of the pack at $85M.

My ballot:

#1: Bob Melvin, Oakland

#2: Buck Showalter, Baltimore

#3: Robin Ventura, Chigaco

As well, an honorable mention, goes to our very own Bobby Valentine. Without him, the block buster trade with the Dodgers would not have likely happened, and we'd still be stuck with Nick Punto on our roster. Thanks for that, Bobby.